All of this is still very new for Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving. But the fact that he has handled what has to be one of the more difficult jobs in the NBA with such poise and style makes it easy to forget that he is just 21 years old (his birthday was on March 23), in his second season in the league. Barely his second season, at that—his first year was pared down by 66 games because of the lockout.

But as Irving wraps up a year in which he reached some dizzying highs—he averaged 22.5 points on 45.6 percent shooting, with 5.8 assists, earning a spot on the East All-Star team—he is also dealing with the lows that come with heading up a struggling team. The Cavs are 24-52, two games removed from a three-week stretch that brought 10 straight losses.

That kind of team reality has been difficult to meld with the individual success Irving has achieved. “It’s just pride,” he said. “Pride as a man, pride as a basketball player. You wake up every day, you get to play the game you love, and I feel like we were taking it for granted a little bit, and that happens with a young team. … I’ve never lost 10 in a row so I am glad that’s over now.”

What’s more is that, when Irving looks around the locker room, he realizes that he is not just the face of the franchise, but the voice, too. Anderson Varejao went down with a knee injury in December, which means that, other than guard Daniel Gibson, Irving is basically the dean of the Cavaliers.

That’s a challenge for a player of his age and inexperience. It’s especially daunting with the Cavaliers in their current plight, looking at the possibility of coach Byron Scott being ousted from his job after this season. That would be particularly tough on Irving, who has looked at Scott as a mentor.

Irving is in a can’t-win situation when it comes to his coach. If he speaks to strongly in his favor, he will come off as a young guy who is standing up to the front office before he has earned the right to do so. When, during the 10-game losing run, Irving answered a question about whether Scott had lost the team by wondering if it might be true, he came off as throwing his coach under the bus—though he never definitively said that yes, Scott had lost the locker room.

Now, Irving has retreated to the safer ground of not commenting on Scott’s status. He is not giving out ringing endorsement. He is not bashing, either.

“Until that time comes, I’m not really worried about it,” Irving told reporters when asked about Scott the other day. “To even imagine that, I’m not going down that road. I’m focused on finishing the season with him and that’s all that matters right now.”

This has been a distinct part of the education of Kyrie Irving at the NBA level. He has had to grow up a lot

faster than most players because he is, oddly enough, the top leader in the locker room. That pressure has all come faster than expected, but at least it can be said Irving is handling it all as well as possible.